Shawn Robbins

Industry sources with super early numbers say... KOTFM: 10.75 Fri (with previews) Eras: 10.5 Fri (excludes Thu) Let's see where this goes.

... and confirmed. They do not plan to include Thursday.

Since there is a very real possibility of the margin between Eras and KOTFM being less than the former's Thursday gross, I'd bet on AMC excluding it from their second weekend gross. Unlike rival studios wanting every advantage they can get in a box office headline race, it would behoove any exhibitor to play nice with a major studio and their prestige star-driven movie... especially in 2023. That said, I've reached out to AMC and try and confirm this will be the case sooner rather than later.

Excellent stuff. Of note, the $80M top end in the LRF yesterday factors in depressed ATP due to younger audiences + lack of premium screens (though the addition of premiums and good early sales in those is one reason the range went up by such a large margin this week). Essentially, without the ATP adjustment, the raw LRF model's top end is very close to this $89M midpoint. Maybe just a few million above to also account for less impact than expected from streaming availability and the "who-the-hell-knows" aspect of forecasting reviews/word of mouth and walk-up potential outside the core fan base.

I'm intrigued to see if this can get a Woman King-like 39% True Fri-to-Sat jump, or if it'll fall more closely to the average 25%ish range by the likes of Venice. The runtime alone oddly has me confident in that being a possibility at least. Unless film nerds are frontloading both Thu and Fri (Fri is outpacing Thu in tracking I've seen), the internal multipliers just feel destined to be strong... unless audiences don't agree with the current RT score.

Endgame and Force Awakens weekends. I have the screenshots somewhere. Our server hit capacity multiple times.

I briefly worked with Rob way back. Forgot all about this. 🤣

In completely and totally unrelated news, we are now accepting open applications for additional moderators in this thread. Totally... unrelated...

You would be surprised (actually, you probably wouldn't be at this point) at the number of people I've talked with not just in recent weeks but in recent days (!!!) that either still don't see it breaking out and/or have not even heard of FNAF. This just goes to show that a very young and different generation is driving hype for this movie, and that's going to be very good news for the Millennials, Xers, and Baby Boomers running the companies who have been late to the game in booking the movie with the level of commitment it deserves despite the day-and-date streaming release. There are points when tracking and projections disagree, then there are points they start to converge. This is definitely a case of the latter catching up to the former instead of the other way around. Internally, I'm doing all I can to spread the word with exhibitors, clients, and everyone in between that I'm in contact with to pay a little more attention to FNAF if they aren't already. We definitely still have to adhere to the "cautious" part of "cautious optimism" when talking about the potential WOM/reviews/2nd weekend drop/fan rush/etc., but... the numbers are the numbers right now, at least as far as the opening goes.

On Taylor: For any baseball fans here, I feel like Bryce Harper after he realized he got too aggressive rounding second base in the 9th inning last Monday. 😔 Glad that track is over. Wish I'd have stuck with my gut on the pinpoint but hopefully the 105 floor will come to fruition (I personally doubt it will). The hype machine got too big over the last two months. Huge win for theaters no matter what though. Nice work to all the counters here! I know that had to be a headache movie for literally everyone.

For giggles, I took a look at some Nashville data since I'm based there (and since it's ground zero for Taylor). Needless to say, the numbers are bonkers and 99.9% likely to be a massive outlier. With ATPs, TET is about... **eyes wander aimlessly trying to comprehend the gap** ... about 120-150% ahead of Little Mermaid. 🤣 (Shout out to @Porthos for the inspiration behind that italicized inner monologue.)

What a time to be alive when everything between $25-50m is on the table after a film has already opened. First one through the wall always gets bloody, though. At least this will give us a good baseline for Bey and future specialty fan-based mega releases... though I'm not sure anyone will match Taylor pound for pound anytime soon.

I'm assuming so for the moment.

Hearing $41m. Not my number, just passing along from a fairly reputable source. (No idea if it's the same as Deadline's.)

2.8 from 2700 theaters, reported by AMC

Thank you. And congrats to the Phillies and their fans here (though I have qualms with *other* Philly fans attending those games, but that's a rant on a soapbox for another time)... Now I will crawl back into my depression hole and try to regroup my excitement for watching playoff baseball without the emotional attachment I had hoped I'd have the rest of the month.

Hearing we'll have an updated/final preview number within the next half hour or so.

I don't know if I'd agree $60m is low. That said, the range doesn't include the upper-upper-most band of what I think could happen... but I also think we have to be careful setting expectations too high, too soon. There are a lot of young FNAF fans (pre-teens and teens are the primary fan base), which means a lot of tickets at "bargain" prices compared to a lot of the PG-13 and R films FNAF is being compared to. My other headache is that exhibitors didn't start adding PLF until very recently (that alone should help pump up the ATP), and that -- like you alluded to -- the hybrid release raises concerns for walk-ups for a movie that's already potentially very fan-driven. That's especially if those late embargo reviews go the way of something negative like Exorcist: Believer instead of a more favorable Blumhouse audience movie (which I think is a bit of a factor in strong pre-sales as Blum is also a brand unto himself/itself). I'm just never a fan of an embargo going up hours before start time for a movie that doesn't need to worry about spoilers and is also going to be available to watch at home for (basically) free. That seems like a red flag, but there's also a possibility this kind of movie is review proof on Halloween weekend. TL;DR -- Internally, I'm with you and everyone thinking it's possible this could blow up even more... but looking at the average of all models, I think the current range is in a good spot based on all variables.

I agree with you, my bet is on them over-indexing. To what degree is the big variable, and this is partly where I feel the ATP may be undervalued across the board. Initially, we were all told the average prices would reflect Taylor's picks of $13.13 and $19.89 (correct me if I'm off on those exact figures, I'm typing from memory). But in the weeks since more exhibitors came on, those prices actually ended up higher with IMAX and other premium formats having surcharges (upwards of $30 or more per adult ticket in major markets). Those sales were also not part of the initial wave since it was originally just the big chains. So while I think the initial guesstimate was for all chains to see a 40-45% ticket price boost over the national average this year, what I've seen from the top selling showtimes indicates that could be anywhere between 50 to 80%. Basically, if we're talking raw admissions, I think we're all seeing similar trends. It's that ATP adjustment that feels nebulous and I have a hard time betting against Swift, especially when exhibitors are publicly putting a range like $120-125m for the weekend. They know the risks if they're too high on that.

I tossed in the final pinpoint ($131m) a little bit ago. I realize this is markedly higher than a few people in this thread think is possible now, but, that was technically the final forecast early yesterday and I won't have time to revise it today (not sure that I would if I did... hard to say). Even if it's on the high end, it's one I don't mind (too much) being off on given how few-to-zero true comparisons there are for this. It's going to have a HUGE result no matter what as a tentpole created out of thin air less than two months ago and I don't think any of us should lose sight of that when the actual numbers start rolling in tomorrow. I don't usually openly invite too many @s or PMs on these topics, but happy to address any questions via either method as to why the final is deviating from the fears of missing $100m. A lot of things in play, not the least of which is the average ticket price possibly skewing higher than expected.

It won't be that low, but... you're not terribly far off. =\

On this point, it looks like the Sat % share of Fri went from around 69% yesterday to around 77% Thu-Sat combined as of this morning. Friday has just been so booked up since the get-go, I think that's affecting all tracking comp paces and really throwing a wrench in extrapolating the weekend as a whole.

You may be misunderstanding the context with which I was using the term "skewed". Most Marvel films register 58-60% or more men on opening weekend. Captain Marvel, as their only female-led film up to that point, was 55%. The only other comparable film is Wonder Woman, which as mentioned, actually drew a majority female audience on opening weekend with 52%. Black Widow (58% male) is a toss-out comp as it opened mid-pandemic when adult women were statistically proven to be the most hesitant to come back to theaters in 2021. For all intents and purposes, that's as much hard proof as anyone will get to at least consider why The Marvels *could* (operative word there) have a similar or higher share (versus CM) of women turn out -- especially when considering the toxic online audience that has trashed the first film and its place in the franchise over the last four years, going so far as to review-bomb it upon release. Let's also remember this was scheduled to open right after Dune 2, a very male-heavy IP, before the latter bailed to 2024. So Disney themselves clearly were already banking on a strong female turnout to counter-program Dune's second weekend-that-is-no-more. It's not to say this *will* happen, but that it has to be considered under all the circumstances.